When one year ends and another begins one of my favorite activities is finding new music from artists I already love or discovering artists who I’ve never heard. This year the second part was especially easy for me because I’d moved – from a smallish town in northern Arizona to Sacramento, the state capitol of California.

Make no mistake, I adored my years in sprawling greater L.A. (1965-2019), but Sacramento has the variety, the talent, the charm, most of the good weather, and a fraction of the traffic. Fortunate for me, it’s a convenient stop for many artists doing a north/south tour border to border – it’s right at the confluence of Interstate 5 and central California’s highway 99.

I am convinced that musicians, venues, audiences, and support staff are interlinked. I’ve found a robust house concert scene through which my connection to other music lovers grows quickly. Also through social media, I’ve discovered a quite decent listening room scene and even a few club-level venues that accommodate a seated (ahem, I’m 81) show. More about my favorite haunts in a future post.

My first share is new music from one of my Arizona favorites. Nolan McKelvey is an accomplished musician on bass and guitar, writes stunning lyrics that weave easily between common storytelling and gorgeous poetry, and has a comforting vocal style – a little bit gritty, a little bit dusty, sprinkles of clear tones, and a propensity for actually pronouncing all the syllables and letters of his words.

I first encountered Nolan in 2021. He was fronting Muskellunge, a rollicking bluegrass/Americana band at Hullabaloo, a Flagstaff summer festival. Truthism: he rocks a festival as strongly as he holds a listening audience in rapt attention. He’s also disarmingly funny in between songs. The consummate entertainer, as Bob Stane would say. When he announced his latest album, How Small We Are, he forecast that it was a departure from his usual high high-energy stuff. Yup, that’s a fact, but IMHO no less engaging and listenable.

While writing this piece during our atmospheric river of rain, I had time to really dig into the album and notice the tasteful instrumental bouquet that supports his lyrics and vocals. At times the arrangements are spare and understated so that the lyrics hold court. At other times, a full band sound goes toe to toe with the vocals. No skips on this compilation! My two standout tracks are: “The Valley of the Sun,” an east to west, sunrise to sunset love letter to greater Phoenix with this line:

“When night falls on the desert, you’ll know how small we are.”

and “Anam Cara,” a gorgeous duet and love letter to his love and heritage.

“Like a Celtic knot tied long ago, we were strings, we were strings woven in the fabric’s flow.”

In a nod to his Irish heritage, Anam Cara translates to “soul friend:”

Kindred spirits who have known and loved one another before time began.
Souls that form an aura and ebb and flow through time, recognizing each other with each meeting.

I mean, don’t we all cherish and celebrate that connection when we are in it?
Special note: I thoroughly appreciate savvy sequencing on a CD, and this one checks every box for me.

New artist to me is Misner & Smith (Sam Misner (pronounced MY-zner) and Megan Smith), a duo from Davis, CA, just a quick jaunt northwest from Sacramento. I happened on this duo by accident when a friend recommended I check out The Side Door, a revered Sacramento listening room (next month, I promise). I showed up early – by my standards – to a July gig only to find barely any vacant seats in a room buzzing with happy chat.

In the seven months since, I’ve arrived even earlier than my usual M.O. and enjoyed this duo playing to packed rooms in full-band shows and/or as a duo – strong, strong, strong. First to notice is their setup. A mid-height gal on a tall upright bass and a mid-height guy playing a rack full of things with strings, two vocal mics, and more mics for the kit and side player Bruce Kaphan’s array of magic during a full-band show.

Within the first five measures of the first song of the first gig back in July, I knew I’d be a forever fan. Clear gorgeous vocals, diction celebrating the words, brilliant and varied melodies, goosebump-inducing harmonies, dynamics and stagecraft, and stellar musicianship. These two would also earn Bob Stane’s approval.

In their newest album, All Is Song, as in concert, they trade lead vocals. Their poetry sucks me in – I mean, who writes “Seems that late at night when the crescent moon was bright like a wry, wicked smile on the horizon” and makes it work in perfect cadence and prosody with a sassy feminist anthemic melody? These two, that’s who. The range of subject, song style, arrangement, tempo, and flavor of this album is a veritable aural banquet.

Pacific Time Zone states have appeared on their tour schedule and they’re a perfect house concert fit IMHO. If they swing by close to you, grab a ticket. Their live shows are full-on joyrides. Trust me, every track on the album stands on its own even if you can’t catch them live. Plus, another sequencing winner.

Find and celebrate the new while revering the familiar. That’ll see us through these dark dark times.